SOCIETY
Some of the VIP’s who made the list for the “Oscars of the East” hosted by Billie Eilish, Timothée Chalamet, Amanda Gorman, Naomi Osaka, Tom Ford, Adam Mosseri and Anna Wintour were a sexy and shirtless Shawn Mendes and Camila Cabello, Sienna Miller, Zac Posen, Debbie Harry, Elon Musk, Emily Blunt, Brooklyn Beckham, Cara Delevingne, Amy Fine Collins, and Thom Brown . This year many of the old guard were swept off the red carpet, which was actually white this season, to make room for the new stars. What I heard, repeatedly, on the Met’s steps was “It’s my first Met, I want to see what’s inside,” followed swiftly by “When are we going to eat?” The quick answers were Justin Bieber belting out “Baby,” “Lonely,” “Hold On,” and “Anyone” in front of the Temple of Dendur and a totally plant-based dinner. What else did you expect for 35 k? Here’s the inside scoop! The Dècor This year’s dramatic décor was inspired by the fall foliage of the American countryside. The entrance featured a facsimile of a grand oak tree with orange, yellow, red, and green leaves, which soared 40 feet above what is usually the mundane Information Desk in the Great Hall. The oak’s pedestal, covered in wild grasses and yellow florals, provided the base for the tree’s fabric-covered trunk. Leaves created from preserved materials covered the branches and appeared to have fallen onto the wall-to-wall sisal below, where they were hand-painted. Have you ever? After cocktails
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and non-stop gossip about AOC’s wildly inappropriate dress, n’est ce pas? — guests checked out the striking exhibition In America: A Lexicon of Fashion curated by Andrew Bolton and Wendy Yu. The New York Times Senior Fashion Director and Chief Fashion Critic, Vanessa Friedman called out couturier Charles James’ black “La Sirène” dress made in 1939 as one of the show’s primary highlights. Check out my accompanying story “Charles James and Me” about my friendship with the legendary haute couturier. But I digress, the perfumed pack of 400 pared down from the usual 600, strutted to The Temple of Dendur for dinner. Rihanna, A$AP Rocky, Kim Kardashian, Isabelle Huppert, Prabal Gurung, Kaia Gerber, Jeremy Scott, Irina Shayk, Vera Wang, the Met Museums’ CEO Daniel Weiss, Director Max Hollein and others of that silk and stripe entered the glass-walled room through a triumphant arch cut out of a hedge covered in green boxwood and white clematis, before emerging into the dining room. The usually spare, stone-floored space was made to resemble a park with naturally overgrown, cascading flora. Trees made from recycled paper, some up to 14-feet tall, surrounded square and round tables throughout the room. Hand-painted fall leaves appeared on the trees, tablecloths, and the chic and ubiquitous sisal carpet. Centerpieces with club moss bases emitted wild grasses and late-summer flowers. Moss also filled the bottoms of hurricane lamps holding white candles. Fruitwood ballroom chairs had cushions covered in ivory or green linen, which matched the
